Environment, aid and regionalism in the South Pacific

Abstract

The island countries of the South Pacific are in rapid transition. After hundreds of years of an essentially subsistence economy, the vigorous industrial and commercial developments of recent decades have placed new demands on the island environment; demands which cannot be sustained without strict controls. Countries have acknowledged their shared environmental problems and limited resources by pooling their effort through the South Pacific Regional Environment Programme (SPREP). The Programme is facilitating moves by governments to manage their own activities and those of outsiders by adopting international legal agreements which define responsibilities and set environmental management guidelines and procedures. The work of SPREP has stimulated some aid organizations to reduce the nature and focus of their assistance and the extent to which they accept responsibility for the environmental implications of aid projects. Greater initiative from the aid community is required in helping countries to take on the burdens of environmental assessment and management. Some of the important advances made by South Pacific governments and the aid community in environmental management are recorded, while suggesting cooperative approaches to sustainable development which might be applied in the region to build upon past successes